
Book_ _T_3 




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GATHERED LILIES; 



OR, 



f hilt Cjnlkett in JJeafeen. 



BY 

A/W THOMPSON,/- *. 

AUTHOR OF "THE BETTER LAND." 



Mr Eeloyed has gone down into his garden to gather Lilies. 






Song of Solomon. 



BOSTON: 



GOULD AND LINCOLN. 

59 WASHINGTON STREET. 

1858. 

at 



Q'X> (TO 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 

A. C. THOMPSON, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



Electrotyped by W. F. Draper, Andover, Mass. 
Printed by Geo. C. Rand 8c Avert, Boston. 






Co tlje $Uahr, 



My Beloved has gone down into 
his garden to gather lilies. He is 
often so occupied, and He has been 
so lately. The particular occasion 
of what follows has, like all similar 
ones, a private sacredness ; but the 
community of stricken parents — 



LK9 



IV T O T II E It EADER, 

parents who have been called to 
part with young children — will 
sufficiently appreciate the circum- 
stances., and they will not deem 
obtrusive this call of sympathy 

from 

THE AUTHOR. 









CONTENTS. 



I. 

THE GARDEN: WHOSE IS IT? . . 7 

II. 

WHAT THE BELOVED IS DOING, . . 11 

I'll. 

WHAT DOES THE BELOVED GATHER? 15 



IV. 



THE PERIOD OF GATHERING, . . 18 



YI CONTENTS. 




V. 




WHO GATHERS THEM? . . . 


. 23 


VI. 




HOW DOES HE GATHER THEM? . 


. 26 


VII. 




WHITHER ARE THEY TAKEN? . 


. 32 


VIII. 




WHY DOES HE GATHER THEM? . 


. 39 


IX. 




A EUTURE GATHERING, . . . 


. 52 



GATHERED LILIES. 



i. 

€\t irate: niseis it? 

The garden belongs to my Beloved, 
and he has a perfect right to all it con- 
tains. The great garden of the world 
is his — and his, not by discovery or 
conquest, but by creation. The right 
of free disposal of any part or any 
inhabitant is lodged with him. To us 
he says, " Occupy till I come ; " so that 
we have the use but not the ownership. 
What we hold is only in trust. That 



GATHERED LILIES. 



tomb in the garden wherein the body 
of Christ was laid, belonged to him 
rather than to Joseph of Arimathea. 

The garden of the church is his, for 
with great price he purchased it, and 
amidst all storms and against all ene- 
mies he defends it. 

Thus have I often seen a vernal rose, 

Which midst the lowering storm untouched 
appears, 

Though hostile lances all around her close ; 
Still o'er the palisade of armed spears, 
Her loveliness unharmed its beauty rears, 

And day by day expanding drinks the shower, 
E'en so unfolding to the eternal years, 

The church discloses her ethereal flower, 

The many-folded Heavens of her unfading bower. 

The garden of the family is his, for 
he ordains and maintains it., The 

e^ X; 



GATHERED LILIES. 



christian home, that little paradise 
which he hath planted, is peculiarly his 
— an enclosure well watered, and 
where out of the ground the Lord God 
maketh to grow every tree that is 
pleasant to the sight, and good for 
food. All the lilies there are his, not 
ours ; and what we have to do and say, 
my friend, is to tend them carefully, 
and when he comes bid him gather 
where he will and what he will. 
Strange that any should forget who is 
the great proprietor ; that when he ap- 
pears the cry should be, Not this one, 
not that one ; oh spare my dear ones ! 
If the Lord of the manor comes to 
gather a little early fruit before the 
general harvest home, shall the tenant 
object as if he owned all, or owned 



G-\ 



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10 GATHERED LILIES. 



anything ? " O come, let us worship 
and bow down ; let us kneel before the 
Lord, our Maker; for whether we live 
or die we are the Lord's.'' 






II. 

The Second Adam, is in the garden 
to dress it and to keep it. Hence gather- 
ing lilies is a constant occupation of his. 
Of every thousand persons, only one 
lives a century ; out of every five hun- 
dred, only one reaches eighty years of 
age ; while probably not far from one 
half of all the millions born into our 
world die in infancy or early child- 
hood. About ninety thousand die dai- 
ly ; which is an average of sixty, in- 
cluding children and all, to the minute, 



12 GATHERED LILIES. 

and hence one child every other sec- 
ond. In lame cities the mortality 
among infants is truly appalling. In 
New York, for instance, the number of 
children who die under five years, ex- 
ceeds the entire number of deaths be- 
tween that age and sixty. Since the 
writer's pastorate commenced — and it 
is not yet a long one — he has had oc- 
casion to attend the funerals of more 
than fourscore children ; and nearly 
every week to come in contact with 
parental grief. Ask for a list of names 
and ages in almost any domestic 
group, and you find a chasm, "With 
trembling voice the mother will tell you 
that this one and that one were early 
called away. 






GATHERED LILIES. 13 

There is no flock, however watched and tended, 

But one dead lamb is there ! 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 

But has one vacant chair. 

A single event so sad and seemingly 
mysterious would demand thought ; 
but when it is found that in God's 
great register of births only a minority 
reach adult years, the subject enlarges, 
and assumes volume and sublime sig- 
nificance. Busy with the cares and 
labors of manhood, we forget that the 
larger part of our race have known lit- 
tle of this world outside the nursery. 
Of the myriads who people the realm 
of spirits, multitudes probably can re- 
call their experience here only as a 
dim brief dream. Jewish rabbis have 
the grim saying, " There are skulls of 



OU3 



14 GATHERED LILIES. 

all sorts and sizes in Golgotha ; " — but 
every one must have noticed that in 
our cemeteries the little mounds out- 
number all others ; and over those hil- 
locks, and over all the hills and valleys 
of earth how much more abundant 
are the smaller than the larger flowers 
— violets and trailing arbutus, than 
dahlias and tulips. When Spring 
opens, what a profusion is there in 
our fields of the beautiful little flowers 
called Innocence, and how soon they 
disappear ! 



■ Qfl) 



III. 

Sweet flowers — what in this world 
is so fair, so beautiful ! 

See the lily on the bed, 
Hanging down its modest head, 
While it scarcely can be seen 
Folded in its leaf of green ; 
Pretty lilies seem to be 
Emblems of humility. 

Behold the lilies ! Solomon in all 
his glory was not arrayed like one of 
these. Just look in upon the dear 
little ones, as they kneel, their hands 






16 GATHERED LILIES. 

clasped while they join in the evening 
prayer. 

See them in their slumbers — fair- 
est copies that earth affords of our 
first parents before the tempter had 
approached them. 

A cherub might mistake our rosy boy 
For a reposing mate. 

How little have the dear ones yet 
learned to design or to dread evil ! 
What a sunbeam in the house is each 
of them ! What a fountain of glad- 
ness ! They bring back our own 
childhood ; they will not let our hearts 
grow old. Thanks for the sight of so 
much beauty of the Lord our God 
upon them ! Let him who made them 
for himself take them to himself. 






8S: 



GAT II EKED LILIES. 17 

4 My Lord has need of these fiow'rets gay/ 

The reaper said and smiled ; 
' Dear tokens of the earth are they, 

Where he was once a child/ 

And the mother gave, in tears and pain, 

The flowers she most did love ; 
She knew she should find them all again, 

In the fields of light above. 






IV. 

% imofr of iat|enng. 

Do we object to the time? does it 
seem too soon ? But what if instead 
of being taken in love, children were 
spared to us in displeasure, as were 
the sons of Eli ! " The man of thine 
house, whom I shall not cut off from 
mine altar, shall be to consume thine 
eyes, and to grieve thine heart. " 
How much less bitter would have 
been his grief over those sons, had they 
been removed in early childhood ! 
How was David sorely chastised by 



GATHERED LILIES. 19 

the conduct and the end of his son 
Ammon, and his heart pierced by the 
rebellion and death of Absalom ! But 
when an infant son was removed by 
death he said, " Now he is dead, where- 
fore should I fast ? Can I bring him 
back again ? A former pastor * in 
England, tells us of a case in which, 
while praying over a child apparently 
dying, a minister used the words, 

f If it be thy will spare .' The 

mother, yearning for her beloved, ex- 
claimed, < It must be his will ! I can- 
not bear ifs? The minister stopped. 
Very unexpectedly the child recovered ; 
and the mother, after almost suffering 
martyrdom by him while a stripling, 

* Rev. Mr. Kilpin, of Exeter. 

So 



20 GATHERED -LILIES. 

lived to see him executed soon after 
he became of age. 

Believing that your children, re- 
moved thus early, are saved, can you 
deem it too early ? Does that one 
live too short a time on earth, who 
does not fail of heaven ? We pray 
for the early sanctification of children ; 
if spared to us we strive to win them 
into wisdom's ways, and to secure to 
them the benefits of early piety. Shall 
we then weep when God takes us at 
our word, and makes them perfectly 
holy at the very dawn of life ? To 
endeavor to detain, when he would 
take a child, is like objecting to imme- 
diate rescue from a wreck. It is like 
crying, Let them run a little longer 
risk of drowning! It is like begging 



oQ> 



OP (TO 

&& K§) 

GATHERED LILIES. 21 

of the physician, Do not heal my 
child at once! " Father, I see now," 
said a little boy four years of age, 
blind from his birth, as he lay sick ; 
" Father, I see now ; darkness is all 
gone. Day is come ! " The fond 
parent thought he was better and 
would recover. He did, but it was 
by going at once into the sunlight of 
heaven. Did he have sight too soon ? 
If then it be Christ's pleasure, and the 
child's delight, shall father or mother 
object ? If either weep it should be 
the child for the parent. Shall not 
the master make a harvest to himself 
when he pleases ? 

" I had but two children," wrote 
Samuel Rutherford, two centuries ago, 
" and both are dead since I came 

(Do 



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22 GATHERED LILIES. 

hither. The supreme and absolute 
Former of all things giveth not an 
account of any of his matters ; the 
good Husbandman may pluck his 
roses, and gather in his lilies at mid- 
summer, and for aught I dare say, in 
the beginning of the first summer 
month ; and he may transplant young 
trees out of the lower ground to the 
higher, where they may have more 
of the sun, and a more free air, at any 
season of the year : what is that to 
you or me ? The goods are his own." 






V. 

Who is it that hath entered his 
garden ? " My beloved — " the chief- 
est among ten thousand, yea alto- 
gether lovely ; beautiful as Tirzah, 
comely as Jerusalem, the desire of all 
nations, the King of Sion ! Time 
was when he left a home of glory ; 
came a long distance hither to this 
wilderness that he might reclaim it : 
came to toil, suffer, bleed. Many were 
astonished at him, his visage was so 
marred more than any man, and his 



O - D . 

~ ^6 

24 GATHERED- LILIES. • 



form more than the soils of men. My 
Beloved laid down his life for me and 
mine. Oh matchless love ! All that 
I have or hope for, I owe to him. 
My heart is his, his forever! My 
Beloved is mine, and I am his ! So 
testifies the saint in Christ Jesus. 

And now that my well Beloved has 
a festival at the palace and wants 
flowers to grace it, shall I tremble 
because he has come down to hi& 
garden ? Shall I stand between him 
and the lilies ? If so, let me not dare 
to call him My Beloved. He that 
lovcth son or daughter more than him 
is not worthy of him. Owing, as I 
do, everything to him — for he saith 
in Hosea, I will call her beloved which 
was not beloved — if I may but call 
<&i — ~ ~~ — 



:§§ 



GATHERED LILIES. 25 

him mine, I will think little compara- 
tively of children that I have counted 
my own. He is more to me than all 
that have died, and all that survive. 



OU5 



Qfi> G)Q 



VI. 

f0to te Ijt iat|tr ijjtw ? 

There is seeming violence in the 
gathering. The seizure of disease, — 
the glazed eye, the vanishing pulse, the 
shortened breath, — and then a cold, 
quiet form I Or the removal may have 
been by a sudden catastrophe. Of all 
the sad monuments brought to light 
at Pompeii, there is no one more 
touchingly suggestive than the seat 
near the house of Diomed, where were 
found the skeletons of a mother having 
an infant in her arms, and two other 






GATHERED LILIES. 27 

children near her. With multitudes 
of others they were buried by the 
shower of ashes that overwhelmed the 
city. Every year adds to the list of 
such desolating occurrences by flood or 
fire. After the burning of the steamer 
Montreal, near Quebec, twenty dead 
bodies lay on the Queen's wharf, under 
the boat-house. Amongst them were 
some Canadians and Norwegians, but 
nearly all were Scotch passengers. A 
woman came in, searching for her 
dead. She passed the first four or 
five, murmuring, " It's no' him, it's no' 
him." Then she stopped ; a dreadful 
change came over her face ; she cast 
one eager look ; her sobs suddenly 
ceased, she drew herself up to her full 
height, and fell prostrate over the body 



28 GATHERED LILIES. 

of the child, shrieking, " My babe, my 
Willie, my babe, my Willie!" The 
by-standers stooped and raised her , 
she held the body of her child in her 
arms, convulsively clasped to her bos- 
om, and kissed the pale, cold face, 
again and again, calling out, " Speak 
to me, Willie, speak!" This was the 
only one of her family, five in number, 
which she discovered. Three children 
and her husband were still missing. 
Similar scenes may occasionally be 
witnessed in all lands ; and yet the 
majority of young children die quietly 
beneath the parental roof. The lamb- 
like soul 

slides away 

So gently, like a light upon a hill, 

Of which none names the moment that it goes, 

Though all see when 'tis gone. 



GATHERED LILIES. 29 



You miss now the blue pencilling 
of the veins, but you gaze and gaze at 
the sweet tranquillity of features, at the 
strange transparency of that delicate 
form, till the key of the casket is finally 
turned, and the precious remains are 
hid beneath the clods of the valley. 

Then comes the sense of desolation. 
Be it spring, with its opening blossoms, 
and the time of the singing of birds, 
there is no beauty, no music in them. 
Be it autumn, with its changed and 
falling leaves, all are unheeded, for one 
faded flower fills every thought. How 
you miss the melody of that voice, the 
patter of those tiny feet and hands ! 
With what fond affection and moist- 
ened eye do you look at the locks of 
silken hair preserved by you, and at 



CX 



03) 



30 GATHERED LILIES. 

numberless mementos, each of which 
has a silent speech, peculiar to itself. Or 
it may be that many years have since 
elapsed ; but however distant the time, 
the memory of that dear one comes 
back like the perfume of the pressed 
flower saved from the funeral wreath. 
And why must all this be ? Why 
has so sad a change come over that 
dear one ? Because " sin hath entered 
into the world, and death by sin, and 
so death hath passed upon all men, for 
that all have sinned." This dissolution 
and decay are renewed proof that our 
race are under sentence of death. It 
is an inevitable expression of God's 
displeasure at apostasy. But there is 
a glorious counterpart and sequel. Of 
all the interesting things about young 



GATHERED LILIES. 31 



children, there is none so interesting as 
this, that Christ died for them ; and 
the two truths are thus happily brought 
together in the following epitaph : 

Blind infidelity, turn pale and die ! 
Beneath this stone four infant children lie. 

Say, are they lost, or saved ? 
If death's hy sin, they sinned, for they are here ; 
If heaven's by works, in heaven they can't appear ; 

reason ! how depraved. 
Revere the sacred page, the knot's untied ; 
They died, for Adam sinned ; 
They live, for Jesus died. 



C 1 ^ g)q 






VII. 

<Il|i%r nn t\t% fskttt ? 

What does my beloved do with 
them ? He transplants them, for he 
has another garden, to which this is 
but a nursery. And shall he not do 
what he will with his own ? Is it not 
well with the child ? It is well. It 
was a transition from what to him was 
almost a heaven, — a mother's fond 
smiles and tender care, — to that which 
is truly so, the presence and enjoyment 
of his Saviour. A dew-drop just 
sparkled for a moment, and then floated 

OS) 



GATHERED LILIES. 33 

away to the skies. It is not lost ; it 
has only gone up. 

The lovely bud, so young and fair, 

Called hence by early doom, 
Just came to show how sweet a flower 

In paradise would bloom. 

What spectacle then more beautiful, 
more suggestive of blessed realities, 
than that of an expiring infant ? You 
bear the dear Iamb in your arms to the 
gate of the fold, and is not the Great 
Shepherd there to receive the same, 
and carry it in his bosom ? Do you 
ever seem so near passing within the 
door yourself? Is not your soul en- 
larged as never before in prayer ? And 
does it not often seem as if the little 
one itself breathed out its soul in 



m z 



34 GATHERED LILIES. 

prayer? A beautiful child, between 
two and three years of age, the only 
child of a missionary in the East In- 
dies, was attacked by the jungle fever, 
and in a few days her case became 
hopeless. Having been taught, from 
early infancy, to repeat a prayer every 
morning and evening, as her strength 
ebbed rapidly away, and her sight 
became dim, she naturally supposed 
that the hour of rest drew nigh. Clasp- 
ing her tiny hands, in a faint, earnest 
voice she began, 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 
I pray the Lord my soul to keep; 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray the Lord my soul to ta 

and before quite finishing the last 
word, she passed into the presence of 

G\D GO ■ 



TO 

=z= - _. -\. 

GATHERED LILIES 35 

Him who said, Suffer the little children 
to come unto me, and forbid them not, 
for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 
Are such flowers destroyed, or are they 
only transplanted ? 

In some rude spot where vulgar herbage grows, 

If chance a violet rear its purple head, 

The careful gard'ner moves it ere it bloom, 

To thrive and nourish in a nobler bed. 

Such was thy fate, dear child, 

Thy opening such ! 
Pre-eminence in early bloom was shown, 

For earth too good, perhaps, 

And loved too much, — 
Heaven saw, and early marked thee for its own ! 

Children in heaven, — what a goodly 
throng! What congregated beauty! 
What holy glee beneath the tree of life, 






36 GATHERED LILIES. 

and along the banks of the river of the 
water of life ! What hosannas do 
they sing by the wayside there, and 
in the temple, to the Son of David ! 

Around the throne of God in heaven, 

Thousands of children stand, — 
Children whose sins are all forgiven, 

A holy, happy band, 
Singing, Glory, glory ! 

What brought them to that world above, 

That heaven so bright and fair, 
Where all is peace, and joy, and love 2 

How came the children there, 
Singing, Glory, glory ? 

Because the Saviour shed his blood 

To wash away their sin : 
Bathed in that pure and precious blood, 

Behold them white and clean, 
Singing, Glory, glory ! 






GATHERED LILES. 37 

Garcias, the sixth king of Navarre, 
in the eleventh century , established an 
Order of the Lily, And has not our 
Beloved, the King of kings, established 
an Order of the Lily, a favorite one, 
without which heaven would want its 
chief population and some of its high- 
est charms ! 

Children in heaven ! They are chil- 
dren, not cherubs or angels. They are 
as unalterably of human mold as those 
who die at threescore and ten. Poetic 
theology may invest them with wings, 
and bring them back to our firesides, 
as unseen spectators and guardians, 
but there is no ground for such a 
fancy. They are elsewhere and other- 
wise employed. Angels proper, are 
indeed ministering spirits, sent forth to 



CX5 



6m_ 



38 GATHERED LILIES. 

minister unto them that shall be heirs 
of salvation ; but they constitute a sep- 
arate order of beings. There is no 
transmutation of species. The Creator 
never does, and no culture ever can 
convert a lily into a rose. 






Q T cop 



VIII. 

8BHJE te f e M\tx t\n\\? 

One reason why he takes these 
flowers is, for the sake of his garden 
above. That is. the central and the 
most beautiful and glorious spot in 
the universe. There is the city, the 
capital of the Great King. He will 
have his court thronged ; he will have 
his palace adorned with the most 
precious things from all parts of his 
dominions. Hence the gates of it 
shall not be shut at all by day ; and 
they shall bring the glory and the 









&£ 

40 GATHERED LILIES. 

honor of the nations into it. Has not 
Christ a special delight in children 
and their praises, and are not young 
children the glory and honor of na- 
tions ? The value of the diamond 
does not depend upon its size, but its 
lustre ; and would Christ part with 
these smaller brilliants in his crown ? 
How great a loss would this garden 
and the one above suffer, if all lilies of 
the valley were withdrawn ! 

Everything, says Solomon, is beau- 
tiful in his season. The celebrated 
Linnaeus, finding that certain plants 
open and close their flowers at regular 
intervals, arranged a vegetable time- 
piece in the great garden at Upsala, 
whereby the hours of the day were 
marked by the successive opening and 

* , -= 



GATHERED LILIES. 41 

closing of blossoms ; and in the same 
way, also, he formed a rural calendar 
for regulating the labors of husbandry, 
according to the opening of blossoms 
upon plants at their stated times. 

'Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours, 

As they floated in light away, 
By the opening and the folding flowers, 

That laugh to the summer's day. 

Thus had each moment its own rich hue, 

And its graceful cup and bell, 
In whose colored vase might sleep the dew, 

Like a pearl in an ocean-shell. 

To such sweet signs might the time have flowed 

In a golden current on, 
Ere from the garden, man's first abode, 

The glorious guests were gone. 

What beautiful arrangements must 



§3 



:.\j 



(VD 



42 GATHERED LILIES. 

there be in the land that is very far 
off! God grant our eyes may yet 
look upon the horologue of flowers in 
his ample garden above, and see how 
the hours and months of heaven are 
measured! 

You still ask, Why does our Be- 
loved gather these flowers ? It is ' for 
their own sake. It is to a richer soil 
and beneath a serener sky that they 
are taken. They are there sheltered 
from the east wind. They are 

Gone — where no dark sin is cherished, 
Where no woes nor fears invade, 

Gone — ere youth's first flower had perished, 
To a youth that ne'er can fade. 

They are taken from all evil to come ; 
yes, kindly taken away from the iin- 



cyo 



3ft <w 

GATHERED L1LES. 43 



perfect training of parents here. An 
earthly father and mother, even though 
true disciples of Christ, are often very 
unsafe persons with whom to intrust 
such precious olive plants; and so the 
latter are mercifully removed. If 
parents, then, do object, is it not to 
say, that they can take better care of 
them than the Beloved, and that these 
earthly homes are safer than our Fath- 
er's house? None of those dear chil- 
dren wish they had lived longer; many 
others will yet wish they had died 
earlier. Is there any want of wise and 
holy nurture in heaven ? O, what 
Sabbath Schools, what Infant Classes, 
what Maternal Associations are there ! 
It has been customary for painters to 
represent the mother of Jesus with a 



-{S 



44 GATHERED LILIES. 

lily in her hand or by her side; and 
how do we picture to ourselves the 
glorified mothers in Israel, surrounded 
by those sweet lilies! 

Is the inquiry yet repeated, Why 
does our Beloved gather them ? Be 
it answered, For the sake of this lower 
garden. It is needful to the best 
growth and fruitfulness of the parent 
stem, that it be headed in, and that sur- 
rounding off-shoots be removed. Every 
branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth 
it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 

God designs that in the removal of 
our dear infant children there should 
be a trial, a grievous trial; that our 
hearts should bleed, and our eyes over- 
flow. The fault with Rachel was not 
that she mourned, but that she refused 



-KS 



GAT PIE RED LILIES. 45 

to be comforted. There is no merit 
in grief, and care is needed lest there 
be no profit too. It may consume 
your own heart; it certainly will not 
prove the breath and dew of heaven to 
your faded lily. " Tears will not,*' as 
Sir William Temple remarks, " water 
the lovely plant so as to cause it to 
grow again ; sighs will not give it new 
breath, nor can we furnish it with life 
and spirits by the waste of our own." 
God would have you keep in mind 
how much more he has given than 
taken ; that although he has removed 
an only child, or all your children, it 
may be, yet has he sent to this world 
his only and well-beloved Son, the un- 
speakable gift, without which there 
would be no hope for us or our off- 



82= 



4G GATHERED LILIES 

spring. Knowing then what infinite 
mercy has done, and with what fatherly 
intent these chastisements are inflicted, 
can you for a moment murmur or re- 
pine? Is not that the feeling and 
habit of the unrenewed, yea, of the 
heathen ? One of the most eminent 
Roman writers* of the first century, 
after the loss of his wife and children, 
and especially the recent death of a 
promising son, prefaces a chapter in 
his celebrated work thus : " "What, 
then, shall I do ? or on what shall I 
any more employ the unhappy talents 
which the gods seem to reprove ? It 
was my misfortune to be borne down 
by a like stroke, when I set about 
writing the book which I gave to the 

* Quintiliim. 



GATHERED LILIES. 47 

public, ' On the causes of the corruption 
of Eloquence.'' Why then did I not 
cast into the fire that accursed work ? 
Why did I not commit it, with that 
little unhappy learning that I might 
have, to the flames of that funeral pile 
kindled so untimely to consume my 
bowels? * * * What good parent 
would pardon me if I engaged again 
in study? Who would not detest my 
insensibility, if I made any other use 
of my voice than to vent complaints 
against the injustice of the gods, who 
have made me to survive all that was 
dearest to me in the world, if I did 
not proclaim aloud, that there is no 
providence in the regulation of human 
affairs ? " Still later, he says, « There 
reigns a secret envy, jealous of our 



op 



48 GATHERED LILIES. 

happiness, which pleases itself in nip- 
ping the bud of our hopes." 

How unlike the patriarch and poet 
of Uz, who, after the death of his sons 
and daughters, wrote, The Lord gave, 
and the Lord hath taken away, blessed 
be the name of the Lord. In all this 
Job sinned not nor charged God fool- 
ishly. 

How unlike an eminent Christian 
writer* of the seventeenth century, 
who, after the death of two children, 
made this record : " But for myself, I 
bless God I have observed and felt so 
much mercy in this angry dispensation 
of God, that I am almost transported. 
I am, sure, highly pleased with think- 
ing how infinitely sweet his mercies 

* Jeremy Taylor. 



cG~ 



cr^o 

GATHERED LILIES. 49 

are, when his judgments are so gra- 
cious." Although the fig-tree shall 
not blossom, neither shall fruit be in 
the vines ; the labor of the olive shall 
fail, and the fields shall yield no meat ; 
the flock shall be cut off from the fold, 
and there shall be no herd in the stalls ; 
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will 
joy in the God of my salvation. 

The interests of the church, the 
interests of your own souls, and of 
souls around, — those of surviving chil- 
dren, and others near and afar off, — 
should largely withdraw thoughts from 
private griefs, and impel heart and 
hand to more earnest efforts in the 
vineyard of our Beloved. Melancthon 
*was so affected with the miseries of 
the church, in his days, that he seemed 



50 GATHERED LILIES. 

to take little notice of the death of his 
child, whom he loved most tenderly. 
By gathering to himself the lilies we 
have tended so carefully, the Beloved 
leaves us more time to care for others, 
and a less impeded pursuit of all our 
duties. It has been said, that Sicily 
was so full of sweet flowers, the hounds 
could not hunt there. 

God would also have us bestow 
more thought upon our own removal 
to another world. After burying his 
child, Dr. Doddridge remarked : " And 
now one of our family is gone to take 
possession of the sepulchre in all our 
names. Ere long I shall lie down 
with my child. Perhaps many of the 
feet that followed it shall attend me 
thither. It is a warning of Providence, 



dS) 






GATHERED LILIES. 51 

that these concluding days of my life 
may be more regular, more spiritual, 
more useful than the former." Aye, 
work while the day lasts ; be sober, be 
vigilant, for this is not our rest. 



GX- 



IX. 

§1 iutxm $nA\ttm%. 

You have probably seen the beauti- 
ful device of a group of lilies in a sea- 
son of drought, withering, and their 
heads drooping, with the motto, We 
shall rise again. 1 saw the dead, small 
and great, stand before God. Now 
we beseech you by the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering 
together unto him, that you be not 
unmindful of a glorious future, and 
that you be not afraid when you hear 
the voice of .the Lord God walking in 



-KB 



GATHERED LILIES. 53 

the garden. Not to inquire for the 
guilty does he now come. If children 
are entrusted to us for a little while, 
shall we not intrust them to the Be- 
loved? Will he not keep their souls 
safely, and have an eye, too, upon their 
precious remains? Do we not look 
for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
who shall change our vile body, that 
it may be fashioned like unto his glo- 
rious body ? "Wherefore, comfort one 
another with these words. Yes, we will 
comfort one another with these words. 
O, bereaved, believing parents, take 
balm to your stricken hearts. At the 
resurrection morning your dear little 
ones will all re-appear, from ocean 
depths, from the valleys, from hill sides, 

and from mountain tops. In the 

I 

G>0 



54 GATHERED LILIES. 



course of a tour in India during the 
years 1854-5, the writer had occasion 
to visit the Sanitarium belonging to 
the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions, on the Pulney 
Mountains, a place where our mission- 
ary friends, when sick and enfeebled, 
can resort for a time to recruit their 
health. It is a region of singular 
wildness and magnificence. After 
arriving within three thousand feet of 
the summit, — the mountain is seven 
thousand feet high, — we came in sight 
of a beautiful cascade, pouring down 
the face of vertical precipices, by hun- 
dreds of feet, or rushing in wild glee 
amidst the rocks and trees beneath. 
Along the line of the highest ridge is 
a depression, where the stream appears 



GATHERED LILIES. 



55 



to flow immediately from the blue 
sky ; as if it were a pure river of the 
water of life, clear as crystal, pro- 
ceeding out of the throne of God and 
of the Lamb ; or as if angelic hands 
had brought an urn, and were pouring a 
libation on that high altar, towering 
in mid heaven ; while a delicate wreath 
of incense rises in all the purity of 
perfect whiteness, till lost in the upper 
firmament. 

The clouds were all below the level 
of the summit. There is at the top a 
singularly ethereal atmosphere, the 
most perfect clearness, and the most 
perfect stillness, not the slightest sound 
being heard save that of the waterfall 
and the faint echoes of a concert of 
birds among the trees far beneath. 






56 GATHERED LILIES. 

It required nine hours of ascent to 
bring us to the highest level. Hast- 
ening on in advance of the party, I 
found myself where no farther climbing 
was required, and on an elevation 
called Mount Nebo. The first object 
which met my eye at that culminating 
point, was a small, rude, but neat en- 
closure, filled with rose bushes in full 
bloom. Going nearer, I discovered 
in the midst of it, a little tomb, on the 
tablet of which is this inscription, more 
than half hid by the smiling roses 
which bend their heads down, as if 
weeping round about it : " In memory 
of our dear babes, Lucius and Allyn, 
who died of the cholera in one night, 
Jan. 26, 1849." Two dear ones the 
same night! Yes, and then the only 






GATHERED LILIES, 57 

children of their parents. The father, 
too, was at the time in the grasp of 
the same fearful malady. "What a 
sword pierced the soul of the childless 
mother, the stricken missionary's wife ! 
But He whose is the strength of the 
hills, was with them ; and. the chast- 
ened parents are to-day laboring in 
cheerfulness under the shadow of that 
very mountain. The burial of these 
two infant children, in one grave, was 
the first, and as yet, the only known 
interment among those heights. But 
there 

On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are 

blending, 
And beauty immortal will wake from the tomb 



When Christ shall come again in 



(06 



58 GATHERED LILIES. 

the clouds of heaven, and all that are 
in their graves shall hear his voice, 
will not those sleeping children, as 
well as he who, at the age of one hun- 
dred years, died on the Mount Nebo in 
the land of Moab, and " of whose sep- 
ulchre no man knoweth unto this day," 
awake ? and will they not perhaps be 
nearer their Lord, than missionary 
fathers and mothers who will be found 
reposing in the plains below ? They, 
and myriads of other young sleepers 
shall go to be forever with the Lord. 
Come, then, Christian fathers and 
mothers, of all lands, let us sing rather 
than weep. Our little ones are not 
lost but taken up, 

Where the faded flower shall freshen, — 
Freshen never more to fade ; 



GATHERED LILIES. 59 

Where the shaded sky shall brighten, — 

Brighten never more to shade ; 
Where the sun-blaze never scorches ; 

Where the star-beams cease to chill ; 
Where no tempest stirs the echoes 

Of the wood, or wave, or hill ; 
Where the morn shall wake in gladness, 

And the noon the joy prolong, 
Where the daylight dies in fragrance, 

Mid the burst of holy song ; — 
Children we shall meet, and rest 
Mid the holy and the blest ! 



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